Location Based Services for Mobile Commerce Applications

Mobile setting considerations provide valuable issues regarding flexible mobile applications. In this paper, we indicate the advantages of an m-commerce application capable to provide users with useful information (e.g. historical buildings, shops, hotels) according to their location. First, the application creates a basic profile of the current user (type of information the user is mainly interested in). Then, in addition with the location awareness of the user’s position the application provides only useful information according to the user’s whereabouts. When the user is alerted that he is in close proximity of one place that he is interested in, he has the option to access more info about it (streaming video or photo and text). The application is implemented using the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) platform and is mainly making use of the Location API, which provides information about the device's present physical location and orientation. The customized information is stored online and is accessed only when user needs it.